1. The Romans being now left without a rival, the triumphs and the spoils of Asia introduced a taste for splendid expense, and this produced avarice and inverted ambition. 2. The two Gracchi were the first who saw this strange corruption among the great, and resolved to repress it, by renewing the Licinian law, which had enacted that no person in the state should possess above five hundred acres of land. 3. Tibe'rius Gracchus, the elder of the two, was, both for the advantages of his person and the qualities of his mind, very different from Scipio, of whom he was the grandson. He seemed more ambitious of power than desirous of glory; his compassion for the oppressed was equal to his animosity against the oppressors; but unhappily his passions, rather than his reason, operated even in his pursuits of virtue; and these always drove him beyond the line of duty. 4. This was the disposition of the elder Gracchus, who found the lower orders of people ready to second all his proposals. 5. The above law, though at first carried on with proper moderation, greatly disgusted the rich, who endeavoured to persuade the people that the proposer only aimed at disturbing the government, and throwing all things into confusion. 6. But Gracchus, who was a man of the greatest eloquence of his time, easily wiped off these impressions from the minds of the people, already irritated by their wrongs, and at length the law was passed. 7. The death of At'talus, king of Per'gamus, furnished Gracchus with a new opportunity of gratifying the meaner part of the people at the expense of the great. 8. This king had by his last will made the Romans his heirs; and it was now proposed, that the money so left should be divided among the poor, in order to furnish them with proper utensils for cultivating the lands which became theirs by the late law of partition. 9. This caused still greater disturbances than before, and the senate assembled upon the occasion, in order to concert the most proper methods of securing these riches to themselves, which they now valued above the safety of the commonwealth. 10. They had numerous dependents, who were willing to give up liberty for plenty and ease. These, therefore, were commanded to be in readiness to intimidate the people, who expected no such opposition, and who were now attending to the harangues of Gracchus in the capitol. 11. Here, as a clamour was raised by the clients of the great on one side, and by the favourers of the law on the other, Gracchus found his speech entirely interrupted, and begged in vain to be attended to; till at last, raising his hand to his head, to intimate that his life was in danger, the partisans of the senate gave out that he wanted a diadem. 12. In consequence of this an universal uproar spread itself through all ranks of the people; the corrupt part of the senate were of opinion that the consul should defend the commonwealth by force of arms; but